Often in reflection, what we have feared most wasn’t all that bad.
Illustration:
One of my all time favorite TV shows, for having good moral lessons as plot lines, was the "Andy Griffith Show." There was an episode where young Opie was having his "Milk nickel" bullied away from him and could not afford any milk for lunch. "You wouldn’t want me to get weak bones?" Well, Andy found out about the trouble and looked to find a way to help Opie without making Opie ashamed or dependent of his fathers help all of the time. In itself this is a good lesson to parents, children must learn, and earn, some things on their own in order for them to fully appreciate it later in life, but that is not our point in this illustration. Andy began to tell Opie about the time that Odie Snitch stole Andy’s fishing hole away from him when he was Opie’s age. Young Andy had to eventually face Odie Snitch to rid himself of his awful feeling of being "Lilly livered" and found that a punch in the nose didn’t really hurt when taken for a good cause and that bullies often can’t back up their words with deeds. Opie
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